‘How intriguing! But a key can be stolen, surely?’
He gave a slightly exasperated chuckle. ‘If the key to the vault were taken, I am quite sure I would notice in very short order.’
There. She’d caught him; he’d finally dropped one hint too many. Distracted, unguarded, it never occurred to him that a woman approaching her elder years posed any kind of threat. Even her probing questions about the vault were dismissed as harmless curiosity, where a man would have been met with suspicion.
Of course you would notice if the key was gone, she thought. Because you’re carrying it on your person.
Grub’s mission was destined to fail. There was no key to be found in his chambers because the master had it with him. Yarin’s spies had been wrong on that score. Whatever the nature of this key, the master sounded confident there was no chance of a thief making off with it.
She didn’t need to keep the master from his chambers any more. In fact, she should send him there as soon as possible. It was a dangerous ploy, but if anyone could get the key away from him, it was the light-fingered Skarl.
No need to humour him further, then. No need to smile and defer and lose with grace to pamper his ego. It was time to show him who she really was.
‘Are you stuck?’ he asked with that oily tone that felt like a pat on the head. ‘Might I suggest you move your arch—’
‘No, I think I’ll do this,’ she said, shifting a piece out to the edge of the battlefield.
‘Hmmf,’ said the master. ‘Well, of course it’s your choice. But then I shall simply do this.’ He slid his assassin across the board and took her piece. ‘You must always think three moves ahead,’ he advised.
‘I really just needed you to move your assassin,’ she told him as her knight captured his trebuchet on the high ground between two of his castles.
‘Oho! Didn’t see that one coming, did you, Jarrit?’ crowed Tallen, who was more than a little drunk.
‘Be assured, it was all in the plan,’ said the master uncertainly. He scanned the board and his eyes lit up. ‘As you see.’ He swooped his eagle in, adding its value to the adjacent swordsman, and took the knight. ‘There!’
‘Oh, very good,’ said Tallen. ‘But I think you’ll find—’
‘You’ve exposed your giant,’ Mara finished, and took it.
‘Exactly so,’ said Tallen.
‘The lady has claws!’ one of the audience commented, enjoying Jarrit’s increasing discomfort.
‘Nonsense! She’s merely realised at last that attack is the best defence! A little too late, though. As you can see, I have more than double her pieces.’
‘Battles have been won with worse odds,’ said Mara calmly. ‘Assandra’s stand at Gudruk during the Third Purge. Rennau’s rout of the Royalists at Durn, which turned the tide of the revolution. The Battle of Ravenspear, when the gnawls turned on the urds and ogren. Tactics trump superior numbers every time.’
‘You know your history,’ said the master, staring at her in worried amazement. Suddenly he didn’t recognise the woman in front of him. Then he shook himself and his face firmed, as much as was possible with the excess of flesh that surrounded it. ‘However, it will avail you nothing. I have superior numbers and superior tactics.’
‘Then make your move,’ said Mara, ‘and we shall see.’
Stung, he threw his forces into a reckless attack. Mara caved before it, skirmishing along his line, picking off the weakest – and fastest – pieces as his forces were stretched thin. He took a castle at considerable sacrifice, then while he was gloating, Mara slipped across the river and assassinated his draccen.
Over the next few turns, the master began to understand what she’d done. Almost all his highly mobile pieces were gone, leaving him with a powerful but lumbering army, most of which was on the other side of the river from his king.
‘Jarrit, I do believe she’s beating you!’ said Lord Hewit with delight.
‘She is not beating me!’ he huffed. ‘I still have my most powerful pieces, while she is reduced to the rank and file.’
‘Better get them back across the river fast, though,’ said Tallen, chuckling.
The master was flustered now, the colour rising in his cheeks and his temper with it. His moves became hasty, striking out at anything he could hit. Mara dangled bait in front of him, sacrificing pieces to draw his troops away from their king’s side, and he took it again and again.
By the end, he even believed he was winning.
‘Ha!’ he said as he reached for an archer. ‘Did you forget that this hill increases my archer’s range? I can hit your swordsman from there.’
A snort of laughter from the audience stopped him and he glared at Tallen in irritation. ‘By the Primus, you are getting on my nerves!’ he complained.
‘Haven’t you noticed she’s beaten you?’ Tallen told him.
The master’s face went slack. ‘No, she hasn’t!’ he said.
Tallen leaned over the board, tracing lines with his finger. ‘Assassin here. Swordsman here. Knight here. Your king doesn’t have enough moves to get up to that high ground, so there’s nowhere he can go. Next turn, her archer moves to the high ground your king can’t reach, and he’s dead. No escape, no matter what you do.’ He straightened and applauded, slowly but earnestly. ‘Bravo, my lady. Bravo.’
The master was still furiously searching the board, seeking some way out, unable to understand how he’d come to this predicament. He wanted to cry ‘Cheat!’, she saw it. It would be so much easier than admitting he’d been bettered.
‘It would appear that some women have more logical and tactical minds than you give us credit for,’ she said, unable to resist twisting the knife.
The men in the audience guffawed and the master went beetroot with anger. His chair screeched as he surged to his feet. He was being mocked now, and he didn’t like it at all.
‘A very fine game,’ he managed to say through a strangled grimace. ‘Excuse me. I must take my supper now.’ With a stiff bow, he stormed away, the laughter of his fellows ringing in his ears.
Mara got to her feet, a smile of raw satisfaction on her face. She basked in the glow of victory, and it was all the better for having rubbed his arrogant face in it. That had felt good; so very, very good.
‘My lady,’ said Tallen, full of boozy gallantry, ‘I must apologise for Jarrit’s lack of grace. Perhaps you’d join us in a discourse on the great battles of history, among which your game of castles will no doubt soon be reckoned.’
She caught the eye of Lady Hewit, hoping to see a glimmer of satisfaction there, some appreciation that Mara had struck a small blow for their kind. But she was clearly appalled at Mara’s behaviour and looked away when she met her gaze.
Mara should have expected no better, but still she was disappointed. Just as Ossians policed themselves, their self-interest keeping them under the Krodan boot, so women policed each other more thoroughly than men ever could.
Well, damn her. It’ll all be different, one day. We’ll make it different.
‘I thank you for your invitation,’ she said to Tallen, ‘but I’m afraid I have somewhere else to be.’ She swiped a glass of wine from a passing servant, raised it to them and took a swig. ‘Good night, gentlemen. Madam.’
With that, she swept away across the parlour and out through the door, buzzing with a feeling sweeter than any drink could deliver.
95
They crowded up the torchlit corridor, shoulder to shoulder, swords in hand. Aren, Harod and Garric were in the lead, the others behind. Aren’s mouth was dry with excitement and fear, muscles trembling with the anticipation of combat.
You can do this, he told himself. You can do it.
The enemy had their swords drawn by the time Aren and the others hustled into view, warned by the sound of approaching footsteps. Aren saw the double-barred cross of the Iron Hand on their armour and recognised the man at their head: Captain Dressle, who’d escorted him to the interrogation room after
Harte captured him. Dressle’s eyes hardened as he saw Aren and then flicked to Garric.
‘For Ossia!’ Aren cried, unable to contain the tension inside him. They charged and met their opponents in a jagged crash of steel.
All of Aren’s training went out of his head the moment the fight began. What was left were the reactions and responses drilled into him by Master Orik, as familiar as instinct. In the confines of the corridor, he was jostled from all sides, battling for space to swing his sword. Before him was a pug-nosed, black-bearded man with a scar across one eye. Just another face, meaning nothing. He wasn’t a person but an obstacle. All Aren needed to do was kill him.
There was only space for three abreast in the corridor, but the Ossians had Harod on their side, the calm force holding the centre. Dressle could barely get a blow in on him. His blade flashed here and there as he blocked and feinted, his stance rigid and his back stiff.
Dressle quickly realised the way things would go in an even fight and barked an order to fall back. Behind them, the corridor opened up into a wider room where the rest of his guardsmen could lend their swords.
Aren’s opponent stepped back and swung. Aren moved to block it, but Harod’s blade was there first. He turned his block into a thrust, driving his blade into the man’s armpit. The soldier gaped and coughed blood. Aren put his foot to his chest and sent him sprawling into the man behind him. Another soldier pushed in to fill the space, but there was the thump of a bowstring and he fell with one of Fen’s arrows protruding from his mouth.
Aren glanced to the right and saw Garric smash through his opponent’s weak guard before hacking deep into his shoulder. The soldier screamed and blood spurted from the wound as Garric yanked his blade free. Where Harod was calm, Garric was possessed, teeth gritted, fuelled by a furnace of rage. Without his beard and hair there was a raw, lean savagery to him, the look of a starving wolf.
They pressed their advantage and Dressle retreated under a rain of blows. He tripped over a fallen soldier and tumbled into the room behind him, his attackers spilling in after. Two more soldiers closed ranks to protect their captain before Harod could impale him. One of them found themselves impaled in his stead.
Aren took a moment to size up the odds. There were half a dozen including Dressle, spread across a square chamber that Aren guessed was an unmanned guard post. He saw an empty weapons rack on the wall, a table and chairs, sacks piled near a battered supply chest. A torch burned in a rusty sconce and a narrow staircase led upwards.
The combat spread out inside the room. Ruck pushed past Aren and pounced on a soldier, knocking him down in a tumble of fur and claw to savage his exposed face. He screamed in horror and pain as his cheek was ripped away from the bone beneath. One of his companions tried to break off from the fighting to help him, and Aren took advantage of his distraction to press the attack. A lucky blow sheared the fingers off his opponent’s sword-hand, causing him to drop his weapon, and he stared at the stumps in shocked puzzlement before Aren ran him through.
Garric, a ragged agent of vengeance, cut down another guard to Aren’s left. Angry as he was, he had a Dawnwarden’s skill and his blows were cunningly placed. He stepped past the fallen man, stalking Dressle, who was scrambling back on his elbows, yet to find his feet. Dressle saw him coming and reached for a sword that had landed near him, but he was too late. Garric executed him with an overhead swing so hard that it chipped the stone beneath his body.
The discipline of the last two guardsmen faltered and broke. One of them ran for the stairs and was shot through the back by Fen. Vika flung a handful of red powder in the other soldier’s face. He stumbled away, gagging, and Garric cut him down.
A handful of heartbeats after it had begun, it was over. Aren stood among the carnage, panting, both hands on his sword hilt as if expecting more enemies to appear. The only sound was huffing breath and the wet, desperate gargle of Ruck’s victim as he tried to draw air through a torn-out throat. Soon his eyes glazed and he fell silent. Ruck, her muzzle bloody with gore, began to lick her paws.
Harod sheathed his blade. He looked absurd. His velvets and hose were splattered with blood and his hair had dried in a jester’s mop, but his face was impassive and serious as ever and no one felt like laughing at him. Orica and Cade crept into the room now the fighting was done, Cade holding a sword out before her like some brave defender.
Garric surveyed the bodies scattered around the room. The tinny-sweet smell of fresh blood was thick in the air. ‘Reckon anyone heard us?’
‘The guards are all on the floors above, protecting the guests,’ said Aren, ‘and these walls are thick. We may have been lucky.’
Garric began moving between the bodies, examining them, searching for something. ‘They came down here for me. That means they know we’re here.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Aren. ‘Only that they suspect something. Maybe they were just being cautious. We don’t know, so we go on.’
Garric gave him a look, half-amazed. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’
‘Tires you out, doesn’t it?’ Cade commiserated.
‘Grub’s out there somewhere,’ said Aren. ‘He’s relying on us to be ready when he gets to the vault. I won’t let him down. So that’s where we’re going.’
‘Not I,’ said Garric. He knelt down next to the guard that had been shot through the mouth and began unstrapping his armour.
They stared at him in silence. ‘What do you mean, “Not I”?’ Aren asked at last.
‘You think you’ll even get to the Ember Blade?’ Garric replied, tugging off the guard’s trousers. ‘You’re going to climb all the way up through this fortress, bedraggled and covered in blood, while the Krodans are on the alert and looking for you? Good luck with that. If I thought you’d listen, I’d tell you to turn around and get out of here while you still have your lives.’
Aren was aghast. The man before him had suddenly become a stranger. ‘We can make our way through the empty parts of the fortress, you know that!’ he argued, hurt and shocked. ‘You planned to do it yourself!’ His face slackened as a dreadful suspicion settled on him. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘No,’ said Vika, who’d reached the same conclusion. ‘He didn’t. Whatever he planned, he never meant to come back at all.’
Garric met her eye briefly then looked away, busying himself with stripping the armour. ‘If I learned one lesson from Salt Fork, it was this: a man who overreaches cannot long keep hold of what he grasps. We were brave and eager and swift, but all we gained was death. The Ember Blade was always out of reach, Aren. I don’t know how you plan to break into the vault, nor how you plan to escape, nor how you mean to keep the Blade if you get it; but I reckon you’ll die if you try.’
His words fell on them like stones, and Aren wanted to punch him for saying them. They were a betrayal, after all they’d been through to free him.
‘But one man …’ he went on. ‘One man, disguised as one of the Iron Guard … He might be able to move among them.’ He pulled his roughspun shirt over his head, showing the criss-cross of welts on his torso, the burns, the crudely stitched line where a nipple had been. ‘One man might get close enough to strike a blow the Krodans won’t soon forget.’
‘And the Ember Blade?’ Vika asked.
‘The Ember Blade is not enough!’ Garric snapped. ‘It was never enough! Our people are too far gone. They collude with their masters against their own kin. They do not have the courage to risk what they have and fight! The Ember Blade belongs to the days before the Krodans came, and those days have already been forgotten. Hope will not inspire them. But fear might.’
‘Hope inspired me!’ Fen said, and Aren could hear she was as hurt as he was.
‘You promised us the Ember Blade and we followed you,’ Aren told him. ‘We were once a great people, and we still are! I know it! The blood of the wolf still flows in Ossian veins. They will rally to the Ember Blade!’
‘You don’t have it yet,’ said Garric. ‘And even if you
did, they won’t.’
The cold certainty in his voice numbed Aren. Nobody had expected this. Nobody knew what to do.
‘When did you stop believing?’ Aren asked him, his voice small.
Garric was pulling on the dead man’s clothes and armour. ‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘And I admire your newfound patriotism. But it is newly found, Aren, and hardly tested. I’ve been fighting this battle a lot longer than you.’ He paused for a moment, pulled an undershirt over his head. ‘You want to know when I stopped believing? When my closest friend sold me out to torture and death, just like thirty years ago. All that struggle and I’m right where I started, with a knife in my back.’ Garric sighed wearily. ‘I’ll not chase false hope any more.’
‘You are not the champion in my vision,’ Vika accused, her voice sharp with disgust. Ruck growled at him.
‘I never claimed to be,’ said Garric, fixing on the greaves.
‘What about your oath?’ Cade cried. ‘You’re a Dawnwarden!’
‘Aye. I’m a Dawnwarden, for what that’s worth. And I swore never to see the Ember Blade wielded by any but an Ossian. But if we’re all killed trying to get it, as we likely will be, then it will be in Prince Ottico’s hands two days from now. You have my thanks for saving me, but my mission remains unchanged.’
‘What is your mission, then, if not to steal the Ember Blade?’ Orica asked.
Garric ignored her as he finished strapping on the breastplate and threw the cloak over his back. The fit wasn’t perfect, but it would pass. He pulled up his shirt till it sat tight under his chin and covered the scar at his throat.
‘Milady asked you a question,’ said Harod.
Garric straightened, his face grim in the torchlight. ‘I’m going to kill the prince,’ he said. ‘I’m going to kill General Dakken, who slaughtered the Dawnwardens. I’m going to kill every high-ranking Krodan I possibly can. And then I’m going to burn this place to the gods-damned ground and bury the Ember Blade under so much rubble it will lie in these mountains till time’s end.’
The Ember Blade Page 77